Maintenance Management
A Comprehensive Guide to Maintenance KPIs
Maintenance management key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics used to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of a maintenance program from a management perspective.
Maintenance indicators help organizations understand the reliability and efficiency of their equipment and provide a basis for comparing the performance of different systems and equipment.
You can use these metrics to track various aspects of the maintenance process, such as maintenance cost, productivity, and quality.
By regularly monitoring and analyzing these KPIs, organizations can identify areas where their maintenance program is strong and could be improved.
What are the four primary maintenance KPIs?
The four main maintenance KPIs (key performance indicators) are:
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
MTBF is the average time that passes between failures of a particular piece of equipment.
For example, if a piece of equipment has been operating for 100 hours and has experienced 3 failures during that time, its MTBF would be 33.33 hours.
Importance: MTBF, or Mean Time Between Failures, is an important reliability metric because it helps manufacturers and businesses understand how reliable their products or systems are.
By calculating the average time between failures, MTBF can provide valuable insights into the expected reliability and uptime of a product or system.
Benefits: One of the main benefits of MTBF is that it can be used to identify potential design weaknesses, failure modes, and areas for improvement in a product or system.
By improving the reliability and quality of their products, manufacturers can reduce the risk of costly downtime or repairs, and enhance the overall customer experience.
MTBF can also help businesses plan maintenance schedules, reduce downtime, and improve profitability.
Shortcomings: One of the shortcomings of MTBF is that it is based on statistical averages and may not always accurately predict the actual failure rate of a product or system.
MTBF also assumes that failures are random and not related to specific conditions or usage patterns, which may not always be the case.
Therefore, it's important to use MTBF in conjunction with other reliability metrics and real-world testing to get a more complete picture of a product's or system's reliability.
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
MTTR is the average time it takes to repair failed equipment.
For example, if it took a total of 10 hours to repair 3 failed pieces of equipment, the MTTR would be 3.33 hours.
Importance: MTTR helps companies identify and resolve issues with their assets as quickly as possible. The faster an issue is resolved, the less downtime the asset experiences, which can save the company time and money.
Benefits: One of the biggest benefits of MTTR is that it helps companies prioritize maintenance tasks. By focusing on assets with higher MTTR, companies can ensure that they're allocating their resources in the most effective way possible.
Shortcomings: MTTR doesn't necessarily take into account the root cause of an issue. For example, if an asset keeps breaking down, simply repairing it quickly every time may not be the most effective long-term solution.
Additionally, MTTR doesn't take into account the time it takes to identify and report an issue, which can skew the metric.
Equipment Availability
Equipment availability is the percentage of time that a piece of equipment is available for use.
For example, if a piece of equipment has been operating for 100 hours and has experienced 10 hours of downtime, its availability would be 90%.
Importance: Equipment reliability as a KPI helps companies maximize the uptime of their equipment, which in turn can improve productivity, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction.
Benefits: One of the biggest benefits of equipment reliability is that it can help companies identify which assets are prone to failure and prioritize maintenance efforts accordingly.
By proactively addressing issues before they become major problems, companies can avoid unplanned downtime and reduce the likelihood of costly repairs.
Another benefit of equipment reliability is that it can help companies optimize their asset utilization. Understanding which assets are reliable, companies can make informed decisions about which assets to invest in and how to deploy them most effectively.
Shortcomings: Equipment reliability as a KPI is that it doesn't necessarily take into account the impact of environmental factors or human error. For example, an asset may be perfectly reliable under normal conditions, but fail due to extreme weather or an operator error.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
OEE measures how well a piece of equipment is being utilized.
For example, if a piece of equipment has an availability of 90%, a performance efficiency of 95%, and a quality rate of 98%, its OEE would be (90 x 95 x 98) / 100 = 84.1%.
Importance: OEE provides a comprehensive view of how well equipment is performing, taking into account factors such as downtime, speed, and quality.
Benefits: OEE helps identify dentify which areas are causing the biggest productivity losses and recommend steps to address them by breaking down the contributing factors (availability, performance, and quality.)
Another benefit of OEE is that it can help companies measure the effectiveness of their maintenance and improvement efforts over time.
Shortcomings: OEE doesn't necessarily take into account external factors that can impact productivity, such as changes in demand or supply chain disruptions.
Additionally, OEE can be difficult to accurately measure, as it requires detailed data on factors such as machine downtime and speed.
In addition to these performance indicators, organizations may use more specific indicators to measure the effectiveness of their maintenance activities.
These include indicators such as the quality of maintenance work, the safety performance of maintenance staff, and the level of customer satisfaction with maintenance services, and more.
By tracking a range of maintenance indicators, organizations can gain a comprehensive view of their maintenance performance and identify opportunities for improvement.
Let's take a look at some more maintenance management KPIs.
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Common maintenance management KPIs
Equipment reliability
Equipment reliability tells you how often you can expect a piece of equipment to perform its intended function without failure.
For example, if a piece of equipment has an MTBF of 100 hours and an MTTR of 10 hours, its reliability would be 90.91% ((100 / (100 + 10)) = 90.91%).
Maintenance response time
Maintenance response time is the average time it takes for maintenance personnel to respond to a request for service.
For example, if it took a total of 30 minutes to respond to 10 requests for service, the average response time would be 3 minutes ((30 / 10) = 3).
Planned maintenance compliance
Planned maintenance compliance is the percentage of planned maintenance tasks that are completed on time.
For example, if there were 100 planned maintenance tasks and 90 of them were completed on time, the planned maintenance compliance would be 90% ((90 / 100) = 90%).
Unplanned maintenance cost
Unplanned maintenance cost is the total cost of unplanned maintenance activities, such as emergency repairs or replacements.
For example, if the total cost of unplanned maintenance activities is $5,000 and there were 10 unplanned maintenance activities, the unplanned maintenance cost per activity would be $500 ((5,000 / 10) = 500).
Preventive maintenance effectiveness
Preventive maintenance effectiveness is the percentage of failures that are prevented by performing preventive maintenance activities.
For example, if there were 100 failures and 10 of them were prevented through the use of preventive maintenance, the preventive maintenance effectiveness would be 10% ((10 / 100) = 10%).
Maintenance backlog
Maintenance backlog is the total number of outstanding maintenance tasks that have not yet been completed.
For example, if there are 100 outstanding maintenance tasks and 90 of them have been completed, the maintenance backlog would be 10 tasks ((100 - 90) = 10).
Maintenance productivity
Maintenance productivity is the amount of work that is completed by maintenance personnel in a given period of time.
For example, if maintenance personnel completed 10 tasks in a total of 100 hours, the maintenance productivity would be 0.1 tasks per hour ((10 / 100) = 0.1).
Maintenance quality
Maintenance quality measures the quality of maintenance activities, such as the accuracy and completeness of repairs.
These are just a few examples of the many different KPIs that can be used to measure the effectiveness of a maintenance program.
The specific KPIs that are most relevant will depend on the specific goals and needs of the organization.
How to set maintenance KPIs?
Here are some steps you can take to set decide specific maintenance KPIs for your organization:
- Identify the key performance areas that are most important to your organization: These may include equipment availability, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and maintenance cost per unit of production.
- Develop specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) targets for each KPI you have identified: For example, you may set a target to increase equipment availability from 90% to 95% or to reduce the mean time to repair from 8 hours to 6 hours.
- Collect and analyze data on your current performance in each of the key performance areas: This will provide a baseline against which you can measure your progress toward achieving your KPI targets.
- Develop a plan to improve your performance in each of the key performance areas: This may include implementing new maintenance practices, training your maintenance staff, or investing in new equipment or technology.
- Monitor and evaluate your progress toward achieving your KPI targets: This can help you identify any obstacles or challenges preventing you from achieving your goals and provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your improvement efforts.
- Communicate your KPI targets and performance to your stakeholders, including your maintenance staff and other members of your organization: This can help build support for your maintenance program and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals.
Examples of maintenance management KPIs in various industries
Here are a few specific examples of maintenance KPIs commonly used in different industries:
Manufacturing:
- Percentage of production lines that meet or exceed their uptime targets
- Average time to complete a scheduled maintenance task
- Percentage of maintenance tasks completed without requiring additional repairs
Healthcare:
- Percentage of medical equipment that is regularly calibrated and maintained
- Average time to complete a preventive maintenance task
- Percentage of maintenance tasks that are completed without disrupting patient care. Lear more on Best Healthcare CMMS Software
Transportation:
- Average miles/km a vehicle can travel before requiring maintenance
- Percentage of vehicles that pass a safety inspection on the first try
- Average time to complete a scheduled maintenance task.
Hospitality:
- Percentage of guest rooms consistently maintained to the highest standards
- Average time to respond to a maintenance request
- Percentage of maintenance tasks completed during regular business hours.
As you can see, the specific KPIs used in maintenance management can vary depending on the industry and the needs of the business.
It's important to choose the right KPIs for your business and regularly track and evaluate them to ensure that your maintenance processes are effective and efficient.
How to measure the performance of your maintenance activities?
There are several ways to measure the performance of maintenance activities, including:
- Collecting and analyzing data on equipment availability, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and maintenance cost per unit of production. These metrics can provide valuable insights into the reliability and efficiency of your equipment and can help you identify areas for improvement.
- Conducting surveys or interviews with customers, employees, and other stakeholders to gather feedback on the quality of maintenance work and the level of satisfaction with maintenance services.
- Monitoring the safety performance of maintenance staff, including the frequency and severity of accidents and injuries.
- Conducting audits or inspections of maintenance activities to assess the quality of work and identify any deficiencies or problems.
- Comparing your performance against industry benchmarks and best practices to see how your organization stacks up against others in your field.
By using a combination of these methods, you can develop a comprehensive view of the performance of your maintenance activities and identify areas for improvement.
How to effectively track and monitor maintenance KPIs?
One of the best ways to track and monitor KPIs is to use a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software.
A CMMS can help organizations track and monitor their maintenance KPIs by providing a centralized platform for collecting, storing, and analyzing maintenance activities and metrics data.
A CMMS typically includes features and functions that allow users to collect and store data on various maintenance activities and metrics, such as the number of maintenance tasks completed, the cost of maintenance, the time it takes to complete tasks, and the equipment uptime.
This data can be used to calculate and track a wide range of maintenance KPIs.
Additionally, a CMMS often includes reporting and analysis tools that can help users visualize and interpret their KPI data.
This makes it easier to identify trends, patterns, and other insights that can help organizations improve their maintenance programs and achieve their goals.
